With inflation stripped away, it goes down. The boost to growth goes down:

Graph #4: Real PNF Debt Growth (Quarterly Growth at Annual Rate)

The trend line shows how it goes:

Graph #5: Real PNF Debt Growth plus Trend Line

It goes down. Note, however, what happens in the '90s: It goes up. It is up at the same time that productivity is up and the economy is good. But then the debt increase of the early 2000s, which looks exactly like that of the latter 1990s, ends in disaster.

Of course, as Graph #1 shows, the increase of the early 2000s was not exactly like the increase of the latter 1990s.

Still, this last graph does show what it takes to make the economy good. It takes an adequate growth of credit, without an excessive accumulation of debt. And it shows what it takes to achieve that goal: It takes a sufficient decline in the growth of credit, as we had after 1985.

Was the decline of 2008 sufficient? Time will tell. To me it looks promising. But I'm not looking at the accumulation.